Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
... many of the things which we deplore, the prevalence of tuberculosis, the mounting record of crime in certain sections of the country, are not due just to lack of education and to physical differences, but are due in great part to the basic fact of segregation which we have set up in this country and which warps and twists the lives not only of our Negro population, but sometimes of foreign born or even of religious groups.
Roosevelt, Eleanor. Address to the National Conference on Fundamental Problems in the Education of Negroes. School and Society, 1934.
When passed, the Social Security Act did not cover domestic or agricultural workers. But these were the two occupations that between employed over half of all African Americans. The Black labor leaders like A. Phillip Randolph, supported the Act as their union membership was covered. The Congress, although controlled by the Democrats had the albatross of the "Solid South" which would obstruct anything that would strengthen the Negro. The strategy the President Roosevelt and his new dealers adopted was to institutionalize Social Security for the majority of American workers and then bring in the occupations and groups that had originally been excluded. And this is what they did however, enforcement of Social Security coverage with individual domestic workers was still a problem in the 21st century.
Senator Glen Taylor was arrested on May 1, 1948, in Birmingham, Alabama by police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor, for attempting to use a door reserved for African Americans, rather than the whites-only door, while attempting to attend a meeting of the Southern Negro Youth Congress. He was subsequently convicted of disorderly conduct. It is hard to believe that such a thing happened in America but it did. ER was one of the few Democrats to condemn such behavior. She took a great deal of criticism from the Southern Democrats for this column. They claimed she called White Southerners “Stupid.”
The country was in the midst of fighting WWII and Burma was one of the battle fronts.
The president was commenting on a Donald Trump campaign statement that African American were in the worst shape in history when the reality was just the opposite
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat and activist. She served as the First Lady of the United States from March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving First Lady of the United States. Roosevelt served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.
